“I’m not sure you should have to protect me from my students, but we’ll see how we can fix that.” Student issues not mate ones. Got it. “And at some point I need to figure out how to casually mention my relationship with you to the right people.”
“Most of the staff isn’t human and I honestly don’t know how you got hired, but once you mention that we’redatingthey’ll fill in the gaps.” His grin said he thought the word was ridiculous as well. “We could also have me come early to pick you up on a staff workday or something like that so they can see me?”
I was pretty sure the nonsense would stop once they realized who he was mated to. Even teenagers who made questionable decisions didn’t want to piss off the local Alpha.
“Oh, that might work.” Looking brighter, he kissed my cheek. “We have one on Monday. It’ll be a good time to get Emeric signed up as well.”
“As long as we do it first thing, I can make that work.” More people were just going to have to step up and start taking shifts again. “And then I’ll bring back Emeric and he can hang out with my mother while I go to work.”
Who else could he hang out with?
Had he said who his new friends were?
Before I could start down that trail, Dorian blinked and looked like he’d mentally shifted gears in a complete one-eighty. “What, Wölfchen?”
“You’re really my mate?” He blinked a few times like reality had just hit him. “With me for the rest of our life and I’ll have a family here kind of mate?”
“Yes.” I hoped he could hear the utter sincerity in my voice but I cupped his cheek and made sure not to look away from mybeautiful mate. “With you for the rest of our life and will provide you with more friends and family than you could want mate.”
What could be the problem?
“My mother already loves you from just what Emeric told her and the rest of the pack will love getting to know you.” Leaning in slowly, I barely brushed my lips against his but that was all it took to have sparks flying between us again. “You’re smart and good with kids and aren’t shocked about our world, so they don’t have to worry about scaring you.”
Speaking of that.
“You’ve always been able to see there were different people around you? That’s just not how magic is supposed to work.” The old word for magic in our native language meant protection. Magic protected us, not just made us. “It’s based on protecting people. As far as I know it’s worked this way since humans branched off from the original Earth family tree.”
They bred faster and had some interesting benefits, but for the most part they had very little innate magical abilities. The old stories that were passed down said we were all born of magic and that humans just couldn’t sense it, but it wasn’t the case for Dorian.
“Always.” He shrugged but looked like some of his memories weren’t as easygoing as he was pretending they were. “I just learned not to talk about it because it made my parents uncomfortable.”
They’d probably thought he was nuts.
“I can’t imagine how difficult that must’ve been for a child, but you won’t have to worry about that anymore.” How had he turned out so sane? “We’re going to make sure you have all theinformation you need or want, including setting you up on the paranormal version of the internet so you can do more research there.”
Dorian took a breath and let it out slowly as he nodded. “I knew I was right but it put a rift between my parents and me that we’ve never really bridged.”
Yeah, because they’d thought their perfectly sane child was nuts.
“I’m proud of you for not questioning that and for growing up to be such an amazing and openminded person.” Giving him another kiss, I kept it light so we didn’t get distracted again. “I couldn’t have asked for a better mate.”
But as amazing as he was, maybe Emeric wasn’t the only one that needed to see a therapist that understood our community?
Chapter 19
Dorian
“He’s going to smell me?” Good grief. “Okay. Not-human senses. That makes sense, but how do we fix this?”
Doing things with Braun was one thing but having anyone know was another.
Braun was doing his best not to smile but he needed to work at it. “First, we’re going to head inside and change clothes. You’re going to get a shower because you smell so good I’m going to walk around hard for the rest of the night at this point.”
Oh.
Really?
No. I had to stay on track.
